


Branched

by Anonymous



Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: I Don't Even Know, M/M, the ship is more hinted at than anything but not giving it the tag felt wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 08:56:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19269937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Maybe this was how afterlife was after all. His punishment, living in a world without Kirito, a world in that he had never accomplished anything and would never accomplish anything.





	Branched

Eugeo woke up slowly, the world coming back to him in bits and pieces, murmuring voices brushing against his ears. He almost sunk asleep again if it wasn’t for the bell chiming outside, signalling he needed to stand up to get to work and cut the Gigas Cedar…

Except the Gigas Cedar had been felled close to two-years ago.

He forced his eyes open, groggily waking up, nausea overcoming him and for a few seconds he genuinely thought he’d be sick. Thankfully the feeling left as fast as it had come, his hand still pressing on his stomach until he was sure it would not come back.

Why was he back at Rulid Village?

His hand clenched on his shirt, looking foreign and weird, and it took him a few seconds to realize the reason why the image seemed strange to him. He’d died, his body cleaved straight in half.

This time he couldn’t stop himself from vomiting, barely managing to at least aim at the floor. There was nothing in his stomach to empty, so he was mostly dry-heaving, his body shaking. Right, he’d died.

He’d left with Alice, so why was he—?

After some time the dry-heaving stopped, tears having sprung up in the corner of his eyes. He needed to— to clean up and figure out what was going on. Had he survived after all? Eugeo had been _so sure_ he had died; Kirito did not have enough human durability to heal his wounds, especially after losing an arm. After being ready to leave him behind alone, how was he supposed to face Kirito now?

But if that was the truth, why wasn’t Kirito here right now?

That question seemed even more important than why Kirito would bother transporting his unconscious body to Rulid Village. Had he decided after all that Eugeo was not worth it? If that was the case, Eugeo would not even be able to blame him.

But how would he have survived? Kirito couldn’t possibly have—

Eugeo stormed out of the house, not bothering to clean up the mess or dress himself. Kirito _couldn’t have_ — there wouldn’t have been a point in it, he wouldn’t have survived it either way and Kirito should have known that— he wouldn’t have been dumb enough to throw his life away for Eugeo’s of all people!

The sight that awaited him froze him completely.

The Gigas Cedar stood tall in the distance, throwing wide shadows.

_This was ridiculous._ There was no way the Gigas Cedar should have been standing. It would have taken hundreds of years to get back to this size even if nobody had tried cutting it again before it had the chance to.

The bell chimed another time and if he didn’t hurry up soon, he would be too late to work. Selka, he needed to talk to Selka, or Sister Azariya or _anyone_ because something was overwhelmingly wrong.

His eye started throbbing before he had taken even a single step towards the direction of the church and Eugeo pressed a hand against it, taking a deep, shuddering breath. This had to be a dream, no a nightmare. Maybe this was how afterlife was after all. His punishment, living in a world without Kirito, a world in that he had never accomplished anything and would never accomplish anything.

Instead of going to the church, Eugeo went back into the house, quickly making himself ready, his mouth tasting like acid even though he had washed it. The streets were mostly deserted when he left the village and turned to the shed to get the dragon bone axe. He was going through the motions, his mind uncannily blank, despite the nausea that just didn’t seem to want to disappear. A few times he contemplated just stopping his needless task but the memory of his throbbing eye kept his body moving, the rhythmic sound of the axe hitting the tree almost relaxing if it wasn’t for the fact that his hand had started shaking at some point and maybe Eugeo should be concerned about how fast he had unravelled just because Kirito was not here right now. He was supposed to have overcome this.

Rustling leaves stopped his worthless pity party and Eugeo couldn’t have stopped himself from tearing up pathetically even if he had tried to. He attempted to say something, anything, the axe landing on the ground with a thud, taking a step forward towards Kirito who took a sharp step back, and his heart that had been warming in elation, thumped painfully, cold washing through Eugeo. He knew that scene, of course he did. It was their first meeting after their six-year-long separation.

After which Kirito had not remembered him.

Why? That shouldn’t be— that shouldn’t be possible. No matter how he thought about it, this was impossible. This was impossible but if he didn’t do anything right now, Kirito might leave.

Eugeo rubbed his hand over his face, trying to look normal, even though the way Kirito was staring at him made him feel overly conscious. “Go-Good morning…”, he started, trailing off clumsily, his smile probably horribly wobbly, but the last time he had seen Kirito, he had been dying and even though this was impossible and strange and also painful in some way, he had never thought he’d see Kirito again.

“Good morning.” They were awkwardly standing around seven mel apart before Kirito decided to bridge the gap, trying to seem nonchalant but Eugeo could tell that he was cautious of him and that made his smile slip a little bit, the cold biting deeper into him. “I’m sorry to…”, Kirito’s gaze jumped to his axe. “… disturb you during work but I’m a little bit lost.”

How odd. Two years ago, Eugeo had believed Kirito the fact that he was lost and had amnesia without question. But even without his odd conversation with the pontifex, Eugeo wanted to think that he’d have been able to tell that Kirito was lying this time. A boy from the other side. It hadn’t sounded like they had been talking about the dark territory. But wherever Kirito had been the last six years, even if he didn’t want to tell Eugeo, even if he didn’t remember growing up with him or the two years they had spent together, Kirito would always be Kirito. That’s why, even if Kirito had been lying and would continue lying, Eugeo would always believe in him.

“Lost?”

“Can you tell me where the next village is?”

“Rulid Village is not too far from here but they might not let you in unless you brought along identification.”

“Is that so?” Kirito seemed to come to some sort of conclusion before Eugeo could make the offer to bring him there. “I just need to go somewhere, where I can **log out**.”

Again. It felt like a test but Eugeo did not know how to answer. “Where you can what?”

It felt like a rehash of their first conversation and Eugeo knew what he was going to answer even before he did. “I mean, I want to check into a hotel.“

Liar. Some part of Eugeo wanted to get upset but Kirito seemed to have taken that ability from him a long time ago. He most likely wasn’t going to regain that ability; Kirito crying over his dying body had made sure of that. But Kirito wasn’t crying right now and even though that made him glad, he wished he could at least apologize one more time to the Kirito of that time.

“Are you too far away from your village to go back?”

“… I don’t remember. Not where I come from or where I am.”

It was probably bizarre to smile then.

Standing there, explaining the phenomenon of vector’s lost child, pretending to be strangers even though he wanted to do nothing more than to breach the few mel between them and hug him, was difficult. It was doubtlessly ridiculous that even though he was the one that had died, he felt the need to be close to him, to check his beating heart and feel his chest rise and sink. Even death had not cured him of that folly.

Unlike last time, Kirito seemed a little hesitant about accepting his offer thanks to the spectacle he had made of himself but Kirito must either have been less affected by his behaviour than expected or more desperate than he had thought because he agreed, despite having to wait multiple hours for Eugeo to finish.

“I’m Eugeo”, he said, holding out his hand, wishing, _needing_ Kirito to take it.

Kirito’s smile was a little bit crooked when he grabbed his hand but it was there, the rustling leaves moving to let solus’s light through for a second, shining onto Kirito. Beautiful. He ignored that thought. “I’m Kirito, nice to meet you.”

Eugeo should have learnt better than to tear up again but fortunately Kirito took it better than last time, awkwardly standing at his side while Eugeo got his act together.

The time until he had fulfilled his quota for the day felt both like it took forever and no time at all. He let Kirito take over after a while, watching him fumble with the axe, and Eugeo wondered where his memories went. Not even body memory had remained. Unlike last time Eugeo took over after the break, feeling too guilty about letting Kirito work on an empty stomach as he had completely forgotten to bring along bread.

If it hadn’t been for the thing with Alice, Eugeo would have been completely happy spending the rest of his life in Rulid Village, sharing his sacred task with Kirito, both of them gravitating around Alice. Alice would have chosen Kirito, he had always known that, everybody loved Kirito, couldn’t help admiring him, charmed helplessly, and Eugeo would have had to deal with that. Would have watched them marry as Kirito’s best man, would have cheered when they exchanged their first kiss. After turning around in a circle and getting lost, Eugeo had finally realized that even if he wasn’t part of it, he could be happy for them. He _knew_ that but his heart still couldn’t help but resist against that thought.

But even if he could be happy with that perfectly normal, boring life— complaining about their aching joints when they were sixty, grey hair glowing under solus— Kirito probably never would have been.

Hitting the tree one last time, he took a deep breath, and opened the Stacia window after lowering his axe. Of course its durability had not lowered at all. He’d need his sword and a higher authority to cut it down. And then, then they could go back to the capital. Kirito knew nothing anymore but even so, they could still use Eugeo’s knowledge to their advantage. He’d have to do better this time, Kirito obviously really did not even know what a Stacia window was like Eugeo had thought but could not really bring himself to believe two years ago. It was a mystery how he still knew how to fight.

Just where could “outside” be? The heavens, the dark territory… or maybe _somewhere else?_

Kirito had wanted to tell him something after beating Administrator, so maybe this time, after they had beaten her—

His eye throbbed painfully and his knee buckled, pressing against it like it would help but he knew it was useless. It wouldn’t alleviate the pain and it certainly wouldn’t stop it from exploding. If they were spotted this early, they’d have no chance—

“—geo! Eugeo!” Kirito’s voice interrupted his haze, his grip on his shoulder almost painful. “Eugeo! What’s wrong?”

“It’s no-nothing, I’m fine.” _Think of something else, think of something else—!_ Anything would do. The bruises he had amassed from being pushed around in the village, Alice, no, nothing about Alice, Selka humming off-tune when she thought nobody was around, the smell of the church, daisies blooming in spring…

Kirito staring at his right eye in shock.

Eugeo swallowed heavily, closing both his eyes, holding himself back from leaning into Kirito’s hands, no matter how tight the grip may be. Perhaps he’d bruise. That didn’t sound too bad. But thoughts like these were no good either.

Kirito’s grip loosened after a minute but he kept hovering next to him until Eugeo finally trusted himself to open his eyes again, fairly certain that his eye was not suddenly going to explode in front of Kirito.

“Your eye turned normal again”, said Kirito, his voice quiet. “What happened?”

Eugeo did not want to lie but explaining everything was not something he could see himself doing. It was so ridiculous that he had been barely able to accept it himself and to Kirito who only knew him as the creepy stranger he had met five hours ago, his story had to seem like nothing but fabricated nonsense. But he didn’t have to tell everything to say the truth. “If someone tries to break the Taboo Index, the seal in the right eye will start hurting and then finally cause the eye to explode.”

“Taboo Index?”

It was not a topic Eugeo wanted to explain right now where his eye had already acted up. “The rules of this world.” There was more, so much more he wanted to say but he couldn’t. Perhaps Kirito understood that because he didn’t ask any questions anymore after this, not even to ask what kind of rule Eugeo could have possibly been about to break just by standing there.

“Can you stand up?” Kirito reached a hand down to him and Eugeo took it shamelessly, letting himself be pulled up. Kirito’s hand felt different in his grip than it had before, even though his hand had also become smaller. Eugeo didn’t have thick hands by any definition but later the difference between their fingers would become more noticeable. Kirito actually had really slender and thin fingers, more delicate than one would think considering how much strength Kirito could convey and pass on just by slapping somebody’s back or encouragingly patting their shoulder.

Eugeo ripped his hand away when he noticed how long he had been grabbing onto Kirito’s, some red entering his cheeks. He had been thinking about something strange again.

“Let’s go put away the axe.” His voice was too breathy and he couldn’t bear looking into Kirito’s face, so he trudged towards the cabin instead. Even though they had finished earlier this time, they should still hurry up to go into the village to situate him with Sister Azariya.

Quickly putting away the axe, he shut the door, almost running into Kirito when he turned around, who had come closer to look inside. Eugeo definitely did not do himself any favours by banging his head against the wall in the effort to get away.

A snort escaped Kirito who tried to hide it unsuccessfully with his hand, his eyes sparkling under the light.

At least this time when he became red he could fully blame it on embarrassment. He stood up, patting away the dirt on his clothing, his lip twisting. “It wasn’t really that funny.”

“I’m sorry, that was rude. You’ve been kind of, ah, clumsy, I guess, today.” Kirito laughed awkwardly, scratching his head. “I don’t mean that meanly. It’s kind of… cute, I suppose.”

“Cute?”, Eugeo repeated after him, like he had never heard the world before. Sometimes Kirito would laugh or grin when watching Eugeo but even though he knew that there was no way Kirito was making fun of him, he’d often find himself wallowing in shame until Kirito intervened to make him feel better. He’d not once thought that Kirito might find that… cute. Might find even a little, insignificant part of Eugeo cute. It wasn’t a word people usually associated with men, never mind wanted to have associated with themselves, and frankly he did not see what was cute about making a complete fool out of yourself but. Cute.

“Probably a bad word choice. I wasn’t really thinking about it, don’t worry.” Kirito looked uncomfortable. It hadn’t even occurred to Eugeo to be mad about being called cute. But he could agree about it being a misnomer. Eugeo was not cute. Kirito on the other hand was… cheeky, he’d run off with a sly grin to get into trouble, somehow coming out with three new acquaintances and cake and then he’d try to weasel his way out of it by bribing Eugeo with said cake, even though out of the two of them, Kirito was the one who was a bigger fan of pastries. Kirito might be cute.

“It doesn’t matter.” Eugeo waved him off, trying to distract himself from his thoughts. “It was just unexpected. I’m not clumsy though.”

Eugeo turned to go, just to stop after a few steps when he didn’t hear Kirito following him. “I think you are kind of proving my point though. You forgot to lock the shed.”

Eugeo looked from the cabin back to Kirito, _knowing_ that he had held that exact conversation before. He still asked either way. “Why would I lock it?”

Kirito blinked at him. “So that no one will go into it and steal the axe?”

“Stealing is taboo.”

“Oh.” Kirito walked towards him, staring contemplatively at the trees. “I guess nobody wants to lose their eyeball for this.”

“No”, Eugeo said. “That’s not the reason why nobody steals.” He brushed over his eyelid. “Most people don’t know about the seal. They don’t steal because it’s forbidden. Just because of that.”

The noise that Kirito made as an answer could have been everything from contemplative to agreeing but Eugeo was sure that that was surprise. Kirito broke rules like they didn’t exist for him in the first place. A place where people steal, where people kill, where people slack off work. A place a lot like the dark territory but it didn’t sound bad. Not the killing, the stealing or even the slacking off part but a place where people had the freedom to do those things without their eye combusting.

“Why do you know?”

“Because I was there”, Solus blinded him for a second, forcing him to look down. “I was there when they broke the Taboo Index and their eye combusted.”

“What happened then?”

“If you break the Taboo Index, whether accidentally or not, you get taken away by an Integrity Knight. My childhood friend was also taken away by them, even though her transgression was completely accidentally.”

“So her eye—?”

“No, in her case her eye didn’t… Possibly because it was an accident.”

“Eugeo, are you alright?”

He stopped rubbing his forehead, a headache gathering at the front. “I’m sorry, we need to stop talking about this.”

“I should be the one saying that. I was being really insensitive.”

“Not at all. I don’t mind telling you any of this and it’s definitely better if you know. It’s just… that it’s impossible for now.”

Kirito kept glancing at him for the rest of the way and Eugeo was sure that he felt bad but didn’t know how to comfort Eugeo. They were not close enough for him to invade his personal space like he used to and for Eugeo… for Eugeo that was impossible.

Thankfully they entered the town undisturbed and Alice’s father agreed to Kirito staying at this village for now until he knew what to do. Sister Azariya glowered at them when Eugeo knocked on the door but that was always the way she greeted him, so even though Kirito looked slightly intimidated, he knew they’d be fine. This time Selka was not around and he was glad. After failing horribly again, he did not know how to face her.

“See you tomorrow, Kirito.”

“Until tomorrow.”

Kirito was still smiling at him when the door closed with a click. Kirito sobbing, desperate to keep him alive, seemed like nothing but a nightmare right now. He didn’t want to see that ever again. That’s why, this time for sure, even if Kirito were to leave to a place so far away that Eugeo could never see him again, that other side that had been calling Kirito like a siren’s song during the last two years, he wouldn’t ever say ‘stay cool’ again.

He’d say ‘see you later’ instead.

**Author's Note:**

> Rather than a one-shot this feels more like a first chapter, doesn't it? But I'm never going to expand on this, so I'm going to let it stand as a one-shot without any explanation for anything because this is fanfiction after all.  
> The summary makes this sound so dramatic but it's pretty tame, so it's kind of a scam. Oh well.


End file.
